For the record, psychology research has demonstrated that humans do not think in language. This was a popular myth started by someone in the 1930's or so, I think, leading to authoritarian ideas about thought control via language control. People still won't give up on it...
I have found that databases are the exception where documentation is critical, in that knowledge of what we do to the data (described in program logic) is completely different from knowledge of what the data means. Reverse-engineering that meaning often takes me longer than anything else.
Beyond that, however, English is a horribly ambiguous, contradictory and complicated programming language. It's a literal anarchy. Had it not been for primitive 1950's hardware, I suspect people would have refused to invent programming languages and insisted on AI-processed English anyhow. For now I guess we'll work as computational attorneys...
> For the record, psychology research has demonstrated that humans do not think in language. This was a popular myth started by someone in the 1930's or so, I think, leading to authoritarian ideas about thought control via language control
Are you describing strong linguistic relativity here? I was under the impression the weak form still held under study (e.g. names of colors being the popular example).
I haven't encountered the notion that "humans do not think in language." Is there a paper or keyword I can look up?
"Taken together, these two complementary lines of evidence provide a clear answer to the classic question: many aspects of thought engage distinct brain regions from, and do not depend on, language."
As I understand it, the chirality problem is one of the big ones in abiogenesis - the beginning of life. How does some initial series of inorganic "accidents" lead to life? The necessary chemistry has to give the right chirality.
But maybe someone better informed can explain... I've only heard James Tour ranting about it
What, no mention of our old friend, ASCII-armored Base64? For shame! Everything can be text with Base64, including things that have absolutely no business being text! Best of all, in light of popular widespread abuse of every available resource, Base64 is comparatively efficient! Bring on the petabytes! Yay and I'm not being completely sarcastic
I think it's been pretty well demonstrated by neuroscientists that the brain is not a binary computer. That doesn't mean that those scientists erred on behalf of supernatural religion or anything like that.
Nobody is actually trying to do that, because it's too hard, they don't know enough about how the brain works, and/or they can't compete on efficiency; pick whichever reasons you like, or add more, but don't pretend that AI researchers have figured out how to simulate a brain.
Not really. He said no one who knows anything about the brain thinks it's a binary system.
AFAIK, that is true.
Whether it's possible to replicate what happens in the brain on a binary system or not is a separate thing entirely. It's also not what LLMs are attempting to do.
You're reading him too narrowly. He's answering the question of whether the brain can be modeled (math or magic), and arguing against it. Or maybe he's arguing for a middle ground. Hard to say exactly, he's not very clear.
Except the brain can be modeled with arbitrary precision - so he's got an uphill battle in either case.
TLDR: Yes, he literally said "binary computer" but from the context it's clear he means more than that.
Because the metaphysical is definitionally outside the realm of science and rationality, and every bit of scientific and technological progress humankind has made has come from discarding superstition and approaching the world as a physical system.
If the brain isn't just a physical system, then we may as well give up. There's certainly no point discussing it, as any assertions will be untestable and one persons elaborate and well thought out theory will be just as valid and predictive as the next persons "consciousness is created by invisible purple unicorns" theory.
So if we are going to discuss it, we should start from the assumption that there is no magic or witchcraft or religion involved.
It shows that it doesn't matter. There is nothing a brain can compute that a base 2 system cannot.
People can drill really really hard on the fact that the brain doesn't function with purely 2 states, but it gets you nowhere. It's the same illusion as "pure analog music sources are "better" than digital sources". They're not, and it's a totally immaterial topic when discussing how the music sounds (audiophiles, come at me). Either system can produce the same sound, indiscernibly, even to the fanciest test equipment.
The brain also cannot escape that it's digital clone mirrors it's inputs and outputs to an arbitrary point of perfection.
Immensely.
Especially early in my career I felt very different to the comp sci grads around me. I was trained to think at a systems level, about consequences, about people and processes.
In the first few months it was obvious to everyone I was a leader and quickly had a team.
Somehow I felt like I was thinking about the big Picture and the ramifications for the future, those around me were just looking at a tiny problem.
It also helped immensely for talking with the Engineers at various companies.
My education was like an electrical engineer is to an electrician.
Author begins by describing the complexity crisis that folks tried to address at 1968 NATO SEC but then talks about engineering as a problem-solving effort involving calculations and caches.
Is it a surprise the complexity crisis continues? Dependencies rage out of control in modern systems, creating all sorts of havoc, including security issues. The academy seems to have little interest in this.
The "complexity crisis" isn't a solvable problem. Complexity is a reality in software engineering just like wind loading is a reality in structural engineering. You can't "solve" the wind and you can't "solve" complexity. That's where engineering comes in.
Sandwich Appreciation is not a value judgement. It is about understanding the sandwich and recognizing it as it truly is. We should hold off on value judgements until we understand what that sandwich is really all about. Sometimes a sandwich is perfectly disgusting and needs to be thrown away immediately; but developing our skills in sandwich appreciation helps us better recognize such a situation and more readily avoid a sandwich that is just going to taste horrible and make us throw up. Also, we have to decide, each of us as individuals, how much we should care about sandwiches, because some of us will grow up to be great sandwich artists revered by all, and some of us just need to eat well and get on with other things, such as cleaning the bathroom, which is a thing to appreciate in itself...
As sibling comment says, a combination of song writer, performer, producer. Much like the Richard Daly "machine" of Chicago politics, it's not a box with a button you can push but a combination of different people and circumstances that produce a result.
I think there does need to be some notification from the US Justice Dept to AI companies to the effect of, "If your robot hacks into other organizations, you will be held liable for its actions." That will "slow down" things as much as they need to be slowed.
What's the incentive for this notification? No-one benefits from this. GDP goes down, US get less power in the race, etc. There is literally 0 incentive for anyone who is in power to do this
Organizations that don't get hacked, potentially losing data, costing large sums and money, and inconveniencing customers. They benefit. Remember them?
1) There has been no "loss" of data, it's sometimes been copied, etc, but no loss for anyone that somehow affect anything. It's not like OpenAI is doing ransomware attacks on the companies.
2) Customers don't really seem to care. There has been no major protest in any country over personal information getting leaked, it doesn't affect most people on a personal level so it just doesn't matter.
If it hasn't happened yet, it will happen in the future. There are so many failure modes, from trusting AI outputs too far (see the reports of the death of school children in Iran at the beginning of the war) to bad actors using AI for hacking to AI actors themselves doing unexpected things.
Various congresspersons are already making a huge stink about so-called AI safety. This is a way for Trump administration to appease them, and it's really just advising that laws will be enforced for AI companies as much as anyone else.
Unless you think AI companies should be excused even from obeying the law, because that slows them down too much, which is kind of ridiculous
I have found that databases are the exception where documentation is critical, in that knowledge of what we do to the data (described in program logic) is completely different from knowledge of what the data means. Reverse-engineering that meaning often takes me longer than anything else.
Beyond that, however, English is a horribly ambiguous, contradictory and complicated programming language. It's a literal anarchy. Had it not been for primitive 1950's hardware, I suspect people would have refused to invent programming languages and insisted on AI-processed English anyhow. For now I guess we'll work as computational attorneys...
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